1.
The crescendo of familiar chappals
Marching with determined pace
Towards the door you haven’t latched.
2.
The Doppler Effect on your shouted name
Emerging from the other side
Of a bathroom door securely latched.
3.
The muffled whistle of a masked sigh,
Amidst the clicketty unlatching,
Of backside doors on an ambulance.
The wheels support her penguin walk.
Her bones are bending under age.
She stops, she sits, she flicks a switch.
Designer wheelchair motors on,
Reminding her of grandsons two.
Her chariots of carven wood
Had failed even to bring a smile
Upon those lips so petulant
Demanding cars remote-controlled.
The whirring motors clashed and scratched
Against each other through the day.
An FD of a lifetime’s work
Reduced in weeks to plastic trash.
The grownup twins remembered, though.
They sent their grandma costly gifts.
An FD of a minor sum
Returned a profit manifold.
And how she smiled the day she saw
The cars they bought with US cash.
As shiny as those plastic toys.
And just as fragile on the road.
By accident of paperwork
She found she was the next-of-kin
In nomination documents
Resolved in foreign embassies.
She stops, she stands, she takes support
Upon designer wheelchair arms,
And trudges on in penguin walk,
Unbending bones that hold her back.
Into the dreamless nightly sleep
I want to wander once again.
They say they know the path thereon.
They have it mapped. The whole terrain.
They need a thorough commitment.
This offer is for only those
Who can afford to leave their all:
The things they have, the friends they chose.
Of course I have no guarantee.
I may be happy. Maybe not.
I may discover what I seek,
Or find a thing I never sought.
Into the dreamless nightly sleep
I see me walking with the rest.
I see and smile and shake my head.
My dreams are beating in my chest.
She slipped away before the dawn.
He waited for her on a bike.
The only one who saw them meet
Was squatting by the lakeside drain,
His lungi wrapped around his waist,
Awaiting nature’s standup call.
He did not have his spectacles.
He did not need them anyway.
He knew the girl in mirrored dress.
He knew the boy with flowing hair.
He knew the bike with engine ticks.
He plucked his ancient Nokia
And dialled aloud some keytone beeps
That reached the girl, the boy, the bike,
Who turned to see into the dark.
The bike was first to spot and point,
The boy was next with widened eyes,
The girl had shut her own in shame –
A lifetime worth of outdoor squats
Had built her instinct pretty well.
They knew they wouldn’t get too far.
They knew they were already doomed.
She felt his muscled body shake.
He felt her shortened warming breath.
They knew they had a choice to make.
The choice that seemed to make itself
The moment they heard “Hello, saar?”
She pulled it out, he held it up,
She steadied his unsteady arm.
The phone fell down. The lungi too.
The birds went flapping in applause.
The bike was first to point the way.
The boy was next with turning wrists.
The girl had shut her eyes in fear –
A lifetime worth of indoor blood
Had not prepared her for this sight.
A day, a night, a morning went
Before they found their photographs,
In mirrored dress and flowing hair,
In papers with the heading, “Caught!”
And just when things start turning ’round,
The desperate’s despairs compound.
Another plate of iron weight
Is added to the barbell pounds.
One hauls it with Sisyphian gait,
Atlassian shoulders popping sounds,
Amidst Himalayan estates,
Around the mounds on Raavan’s grounds.
A ten-brained poet could create
Resounding stotra world-renowned,
Despite his hopelessness of state,
But what of half-brained second-rates,
Irate at being overweight
On top of being fortune-frowned?
What chance they have to formulate
Repeating, rolling, rhyming sounds
That please the dancing feet of fate
Enough to raise one off the ground?
Afraid I’ll make a fool of me
Afraid I’ll drive myself insane
Afraid I’ll see that all I do
Is self-indulgent selfish vain
Afraid I’ll show a part of me
A part I’ve shown to handful few
The few who’ve hurt me countless times
Afraid I’ll open scars anew
Afraid I’ll have anxiety
Afraid I’ll choke on what to say
Afraid I’ll be afraid throughout
Of making something good someday
The day-to-day’s what breaks your spine.
You know you’ll hold for weeks to come.
You know you’ll manage monthly cash.
You know you’ll thrive by end of year.
The day-to-day’s what breaks you down.
The hour-by-hour is not so bad,
As you’re too caught up to reflect.
The minutes on the bed awake,
Before and after sweaty sleep,
Are what afflict the day-to-day.
No wonder people take to drinks
And pills and drinks with pills in them.
You’re tempted every night to try,
But every morning heave aside
The growing heaviness of need:
The need to numb the day-to-day.
No.
I’ve never really forgotten
Which sound the Urdu ن depicts.
A ‘tweener by our English tongues.
Not quite an M. Not quite an N.
But somewhere in between of sorts.
Pronounced as noon, it is just that:
A midday salt that flavours words
That sound too bland without the mmnn.
No.
I’ve never really forgotten
Which sound the Urdu ن depicts.
It’s not because of YouTubers
With mnemonics that don’t quite work:
A droplet clinks a glass of wine.
A star chinks off a crescent moon.
No.
I’ve never really forgotten
Which sound the letter ن depicts.
It’s ’cause I’ve seen it all around
Attending all ceremonies
On shoulders of its cousin bros.
It’s quite at home atop the O
In cousin Hindi’s sindoor ॐ
And sandalwood Odia ଓଁ.
It helps you stretch your breath away
Beyond the universe’s end.
Not quite an M. Not quite an N.
But somewhere in between of sorts.
A convergent continuum.
You spend a day with grazing cows,
You learn from them the real stuff.
They do not seek the greenest grass.
They settle for the green enough.
You do not see them run about
As if they have to win a race.
They do not horn the other cows
To drive them off their chosen place.
Contented with their little patch,
They munch without a tantrum thrown.
And, in their way, they thank the earth
By dropping down a settling cone.
Your startup started up with flair
And burned to ground with equal flash
Within a year and seven months
And half a million venture cash.
“So what?” I heard him ask of me.
“It’s normal any given year.
So many come and go like this.”
And isn’t that a cause of fear?
“It’s just the price of forward growth.
This path is paved with many dead.
To push the edge of possible,
We step on them and charge ahead.”
To push the edge of possible?
As if you work for humankind.
As if the “equity” you seek
Is “not a human left behind.”
“Oh, no, no. We don’t make such claims.
It’s just that every VC learns
The things that help the world improve
Are things that bring us best returns.”
And what improvements to the world
Was promised by this firm of yours –
The one which turned to nothingness?
“It changed the way we look at scores.”
A single screen that shows all scores
Of all the sports you love and cheer.
You bet your half a million on
“Improving” what exactly here?
“Imagine all the time you saved.”
As if your app didn’t suck our time.
The only thing it changed for us
Is added one more notif chime.
“You work with VCs, startups, right?”
Unfortunately, that is true.
“So, why this moral lecturing?”
I ask myself that question too.
Minakhi Misra 